liquid starlight never burns
by star-girllx
Summary: You look into a lake of eyes reflecting flames and scream. —Alice. /written for and dedicated to Janie, for her birthday./
1. part one—glimpse into the past

**note—**This is pretty dark and twisted compared to my usual tastes, but you were warned—completed. Happy Birthday Jay~

* * *

**Alice**

_those stars whirl above your head. twinkling coldly. mocking you._

_—  
_

She knew that they talked behind her back. She heard the whispers, the theories—they let their imagination run wild. Fools. They all had something to hide, every last one of them.

She made sure to allow a deranged smile to settle on her face. They all walked away hurriedly in the opposite direction; no one dared make eye contact with her.

(They were all unbelievably easy to scare.)

In this place, she was labeled as a rebel, a goth, an emo, an insane lunatic…or whatever other ridiculously unoriginal name they had conjured up as the branded image of her. It was, as the Cheshire cat says, all smoke and mirrors.

_Tip tappity-tap._ She danced away, singing a song that contained far too much screaming and bass at the top of her lungs, her long sash swinging behind her—an afterthought. Her unimpressionable soprano tone left no imprint pulling in their heads, though she thought (as she laughed and laughed) that it complimented the dark swirls of music.

It occurred to her while she was painting charcoal-rimmed eyes in front of a cracked mirror—an epiphany, perhaps—that maybe, _just maybe_,she might be painting on a mask, also. And why not? Every day was a Halloween night to her, dressing up and gliding out to scare the little ones. Every day, a costume was artfully brushed on with care.

—

Her mother disapproved (who cares what they think anyway?) of everything she did. She was an accident and a freak of nature; she marred and blurred the colors on her mother's watercolor dream of perfection.

She knew that her mother screamed silently behind glassy eyes. Her gaze was wiped blank as a rainbow-colored blow of a pendulum swing was painted behind her eyes.

The vision is wiped clean off a gray slate, but it still burns in her mind.

(Like the alcohol burning down her throat.)

—

A freak. She's a freak. She's accused of witchcraft—and ashes of danger float around her designer clothes and ballet shoes. Fire twines around her legs, ignites in her chest, and burns up her throat. A silent scream is ripped out of her throat, and through the hazy darkness, her eyes sweep the crowd to connect with a face as warped as a funhouse mirror.

Mother. Her own mother is guilty of sin. This sin. She hates and hates behind a blank mask. Mother's fear warring with selfish desire—it's repulsive.

The darkness is just a vortex, a void, sucking her in. One can feel her edges begin to melt and flyawayflyaway as a transparent shadow.

She laughs, but the brittle sound brings her no comfort in her madness.

_Don't pretend to love me. You don't._

She leaves her mother standing there, white-faced and wide-eyed, speechless because she knows that there is truth in her daughter's words.


	2. part two—asylum and insanity

**note—**This is possibly the ending of a two-shot. I'm not sure whether or not I will write a third part, but for the meantime, this is it. Once again, Happy Birthday Jay!

* * *

**Asylum - Insanity**

_those flames reflect in those mirrored eyes. (a wild laugh.) and then you're gone._

—_  
_

This asylum is devoid and meaningless. An asylum is supposed to be protection. Now, it holds only one meaning—prison.

They keep her in the dark. The world's just an inky blot around her, and she thinks that she might be suffocating on the inkandpaper she's breathing in. This place is a white-washed nightmare, paper walls intact. But, they've colored her room in with the deepest night, and she'll have to burn a hole to get out.

Every time they try to speak to her, in words dripping with sugar-coated poison, she can detect the false brightness with which they slowly kill the spirit. She knows—in her bones, in her heart, in her soul—that she will die. She will die a slow, pitiless death in this black hole.

Day, night, day, night, daynightdaynightdaynight. Times runs together; it holds no meaning anymore. The world spins and spins into space and the universe is an unfurling map of illusions and disintegration, blood red sails in the night tangling in fine, glistening spider webs. A stain spreads along rice paper, and eyes gloss over, a head lolling back—marionette.

(Because, you know, we can't all be nice.)

—

Perhaps this is the price she pays (she thinks) for those stolen moments of happiness.

Nothing can ever last forever (that's what she used to think) because infinity is the price to pay for immortality (which she thinks is kind of twisted).

(But she really thinks too much.)

There's an illusion that lingers in her mind, other than the rippling visions that grip her inexplicably. It's _wonderful._

She imagines a phantasm visiting her. He has the palest skin she has ever seen (including her own), rich crimson eyes, and possesses an ethereal beauty.

He enthralls her with a blinding flash of his white teeth and words flow smoothly from his perfect lips as silver water slips over polished rock. _Alice_, he says. Not Miss Mary. _Alice. _A thrill of excitement and fear runs in currents through her, and she has no time to contemplate her revelation as he offers her an icy hand.

She decides that she doesn't care when he accidentally grabs her wrist too hard and bruises it. The thought takes flight and leaves her standing there, eyes dazed as if a torch has passed too close to her eyes. She would gladly endure the black-and-blue blooming if it meant that she could have this little glimmer of dappled light shining through a small window in her prison cell.

(And the she breathes in deeply and relishes in the human contact. The workers garbed in white don't count; she regards them as mindless minions, or robots if she is feeling childish enough.)

An initial realization settles over when she feels herself slipping away, bit by bit. It's the liquid darkness, she decides, flowing over her and quietly drowning. She starts to forget hours, even days. The clock is ticking toward midnight, and this gray shadow of a Cinderella won't ever get her happy ending because she knows that she's trapped in a Shade's dying dreams filled with vanishing smoke and gleaming fangs—an eternal scream of defiance.

(Her reflection is caught in the gilded mirror, her face frozen in an expression of horror. Smudged eyes running over.)

The phantasm doesn't come anymore; she can't feel his presence.

(Or maybe she's just too far gone to.)

(You never know.)

While she dies slowly, she contemplates, her mind gnarled into a thousand slippery knots and nothing make sense anymore nothingdoesbecauseshe—

—

She writhes in pain and it's the burning all over again and she's burning at the stake and the crowd is screaming "Witch!" and she can't help but think that it's all Mother's fault.

This hate is her poison.


End file.
